A mediaevalist trying to be a philosopher and a philosopher trying to be a mediaevalist write about theology, philosophy, scholarship, books, the middle ages, and especially the life, times, and thought of the Doctor Subtilis, the Blessed John Duns Scotus.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

On Arguments and Arguing

The other day we were talking about how so many contemporary "philosophers" do little more than present old arguments dressed up in new clothes. There is nothing wrong with this as such. Modern manufacturers, in order to sell an alarm clock, create a new plastic casing for a device that has barely been improved upon in decades. A danger of declination in thought lurks here, however, in three stages.1. "Philosophers", by focusing on the presentation, forget about the substance of what they are exploring.2. In order to persuade others of the truth as they know it, they confuse philosophy with rhetoric or apologetics.3. They end up thinking that there is little difference between reason and passion.

About forty years ago Fulton Sheen noticed that contemporary self-professed "thinkers" typically rely less on reason and more on feeling in order to persuade others. Here is part of what he had to say.

There
is one lost art that has not been definitely recovered, and without
which no civilization can long survive, and that is the art of
controversy. The hardest thing to find in the world today is an
argument. Because so few are thinking, naturally there are found but few
to argue. There is prejudice in abundance and sentiment too, for these
things are born of enthusiasms without the pain of labor. Thinking, on
the contrary, is a difficult task; it is the hardest work a man can
do—that is perhaps why so few indulge in it. Thought-saving devices have
been invented that rival laborsaving devices in their ingenuity.
Fine-sounding phrases like “Life is bigger than logic” or “Progress is
the spirit of the age” go rattling by us like express trains, carrying
the burden of those who are too lazy to think for themselves.

Not even philosophers argue today; they only explain away. A book
full of bad logic, advocating all manner of moral laxity, is not refuted
by critics; it is merely called “bold, honest, and fearless.” Even
those periodicals that pride themselves upon their open-mindedness on
all questions are far from practicing the lost art of controversy. Their
pages contain no controversies, but only presentations of points of
view. These never rise to the level of abstract thought in which
argument clashes with argument like steel with steel, but rather they
content themselves with the personal reflections of one who has lost his
faith, writing against the sanctity of marriage, and of another who has
kept his faith, writing in favor of it. Both sides are shooting off
firecrackers, making all the noise of an intellectual warfare and
creating the illusion of conflict, but it is only a sham battle in which
there are plenty of explosions but never an exploded argument.The causes underlying this decline in the art of controversy are
twofold: religious and philosophical.

Modern religion has enunciated one
great and fundamental dogma that is at the basis of all the other
dogmas: that religion must be freed from dogmas. Creeds and confessions
of faith are no longer the fashion; religious leaders have agreed not to
disagree and those beliefs for which some of our ancestors would have
died they have melted into a spineless humanism. Like other Pilates they
have turned their backs on the uniqueness of truth and have opened
their arms wide to all the moods and fancies the hour might dictate.
The passing of creeds and dogmas means the passing of controversies.
Creeds and dogmas are social; prejudices are private. Believers bump
into one another at a thousand different angles, but bigots keep out of
one another’s way, because prejudice is anti-social. I can imagine an
old-fashioned Calvinist who holds that the word “damn” has a tremendous
dogmatic significance coming to intellectual blows with an old-fashioned
Methodist who holds that it is only a curse word. But I cannot imagine a
controversy if both decide to damn damnation, like modernists who no
longer believe in hell.

The second cause, which is philosophical, bases itself on that
peculiar American philosophy called pragmatism, the aim of which is to
prove that all proofs are useless. ... As a result, there has sprung up a
disturbing indifference to truth, and a tendency to regard the useful
as the true, and the impractical as the false. The man who can make up
his mind when proofs are presented to him is looked upon as a bigot, and
the man who ignores proofs and the search for truth is looked upon as
broad-minded and tolerant.

Another evidence of this same disrespect for rational foundations is
the general readiness of the modern mind to accept a statement because
of the literary way in which it is couched, or because of the popularity
of the one who says it, rather than for the reasons behind the
statement. In this sense, it is unfortunate that some men who think
poorly can write so well. Bergson has written a philosophy grounded on
the assumption that the greater comes from the less, but he has so
camouflaged that intellectual monstrosity with mellifluous French that
he has been credited with being a great and original thinker. To some
minds, of course, the startling will always appear to be the profound.
It is easier to get the attention of the press when one says, as Ibsen
did, that “two and two make five,” than to be orthodox and say that two
and two make four. (Read the rest here)

Sheen is firmly in the tradition of the British Catholic convert controversialists, which gained great prominence with St. Edmund Campion and, later, manifest brilliance with Bl. John Henry Newman, and wise humor with G. K. Chesterton. These three have not been surpassed though they have often been imitated. And imitation is not bad, as we find with classical music. Just because music is old does not mean it is not worth playing again. But let's not confuse the work of philosophy with the work of apologetics. The object and method of both are different. Apologetics aims at showing the rationality of the faith (or at least the absurdity of arguments against the faith); it does this through philosophical, Scriptural, and strictly theological arguments, occasionally employing history and art as helpful resources. Philosophy, on the other hand, aims at explicating the truth about being; its tools and methods are those to which every mind naturally has access in principle.

Apologetics is a fine and noble task. But it is not philosophy. This brings me to consider a lesser Catholic light, an apologist, one worth looking at in this context: Sir Arnold Lunn, himself a convert to the faith. His biographer notes:

Lunn
always believed that, as a means of communicating the truths of Catholicism to
non-Catholics, debates are incomparably more effective than lectures. Debates
tend to attract the unconverted who will rarely attend the formal lecture held
under Catholic auspices. ...

Lunn's
motto as a debater was St. Augustine's precept, "Love men, slay
errors." "Intolerance of error," Lunn pointed out, "must
not be equated with intolerance of men in error." Controversy must not
lead to quarrelling, and Lunn's tact and composure before this Australian
university audience were highly impressive. Indeed, so poor a representative
was he of the Church's alleged intolerance that Glanville Cook voiced the
opinion that Lunn was not a typical Catholic. "Some men," he
remarked, "are better than their creeds" - a suggestion which amused
Lunn hugely and prompted the reply that "no man was good enough to live up
to the Catholic code or bad enough to live down to atheism." (Read more here)

The saints would agree with Lunn's claim -- they were no strangers to controversy when such proved more powerful and necessary than good example alone. Occasionally a person rises above the surface of his freely-chosen swim in ignorance enough to realize that certain arguments would be
bad for his "intellectually" held position -- and even worse for his
personal life. So he avoids arguments at all costs and protests loudly against reason. It is no surprise that pro-abortion professors are unwilling to debate pro-life students. Art has its place in converting souls, but let's not pretend that it can substitute for reason. Pro-life movies might play a role in converting some,
but people convinced by movies often have few solid answers to many difficult
questions. The mind has powers the passions know nothing of. Yes, we can agree that arguing is rarely helpful, but argumentation, understood as an appeal to reason, compliments a man and can even save his soul. It assumes that he has a brain and it encourages him to use it, even for his own good.